His long-time partner Sascha Griffin who supported him throughout his trial in 2005 and has visited him regularly, was not there.

She is best known as the founder of shoe-storage business Pinklily.

''I've got no comment to make,'' Mr Cooper told waiting media as he walked free, dressed in a pale blue business shirt and dark trousers.

He returned to Sydney by car, where he will spend three years on parole. It is not known what his plans are, or if he will attempt a return to the business world in the footsteps of his former business partner, Rodney Adler.

Mr Cooper was bankrupt when he was sentenced in 2006. While in custody, he received a small wage for working in the prison laundry and maintaining the grounds.

During his trial in October 2005, when a jury found him guilty of 13 charges including bribery and making false statements, he was overweight, on medication for high blood pressure and cholesterol and on a Valium addiction program.

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Since he arrived at Kirkconnell prison from Cooma jail in September 2007, he has been exercising several hours a day. It is prison policy to allow the 237 inmates at Kirkconnell plenty of physical activity. A minimum security centre, Kirkconnell is one of the few prisons in the state without fences.

He left school at 15 and built a fortune giving motivational seminars and from a burglar alarm company, FAI Home Security, part of Rodney Adler's FAI Insurance. At the height of his success in the late 1990s, Mr Cooper drove a Ferrari, had two waterfront properties on The Esplanade, a well-to-do strip on Balmoral Beach, and spent many weeks every year on Queensland's Hayman Island.

But it all came crashing down when he was found to have bribed HIH executive Bill Howard to show favour to Mr Cooper's companies. The bribes allowed Mr Cooper to siphon $11 million from HIH shortly before its $5.3 billion collapse in 2001.